Assignment : Rise of The Modern West

BA (Hons) History II Year

Martin Luther, Church and The State

Akshat Tyagi

1184

“I would never have thought that such a storm would rise from Rome 

over one simple little scrap of paper.”

That little scrap of paper that provoked a revolt in Germany, and quickly spread throughout
Europe and then the world was Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther. Martin is a towering figure
from Reformation history who is counted amongst the first to have challenged this orthodoxy of
the Roman Catholic tradition, and spearheaded a massive movement to have thoroughly shaken
the premise of Church’s relevance in ordinary life. In this essay we will examine his views on the
ideal jurisdiction of Church and State in governance of life and morality.

The ritual of baptization is based on a very strong philosophy of the Church. Not just does the
Church define the human problem as an offence against god, it presumes a permanent low
position of sinners for the humanity. Baptization is meant to cleanse all prior sins and set the new
life’s will to live for or against God. In declaring people born sinners, and retaining the authority to
redeem them of it, Church acquires for itself a uniquely strong position especially since the
fourteenth century. This is only symbolic of the authority that Luther came to contest.

In sixteenth century, at the time, there were already a variety of monastic groups within the Roman
Catholic tradition, in addition to the general life of the local parish. Such groups provided the
committed few the opportunity to escape from the temptations of daily life in order to devote
themselves to a life of prayer and faithfulness. The Franciscans followed St. Francis's teaching,
Dominican's followed Dominic de Guzman's -- both from the 13th century. Before that, a
monastic order - that is, a set of rules for ordering monastic life -- had been established by
Benedict at Monte Cassino in Italy in the 500s and many continue under that order to this day.
The Augustinian order had grown up in northern Africa even earlier under the ordering of
Augustine of Hippo in the 300s. [1]

After graduating from university, Lutheran decided to join the last order. There are two events that
particularly influential in shaping of Luther's convictions as they came to be. The first was the
arrival of a ‘salesman of indulgences.’ The Catholic tradition insisted that certain humans had
surpassed their righteous obligations as to have more than needed ‘goodness credit’ in Christian
faith. What this meant was that ‘faithfulness’ was tradable i.e those estimated to have committed
more sins could seek help from the least sinning.

That merit was in the hands of the Pope, who could offer it to the people of the Church. The sale
of indulgences made that extra merit available to people, not only for themselves but for anyone
else who had died and in whose name a Christian might purchase it. Since the shortage of faith in
this world could mean a person could get stalled in the purifying state of Purgatory for thousands
of years, a person in this world could easily be convinced that the purchase of an indulgence on
their behalf was a deep act of compassion and love. [2]

Luther was philosophically appalled at this invention of authority for itself by the Church. He
formulated 95 points of debate regarding the practice, such as the question, If the Pope has the
power to apply the merit of the saints and set Christians free from suffering and grant them
access to heaven, "Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love?". Luther
intended a scholarly debate, and posted his 95 Theses on October 31, 1517 as an invitation to the
university faculty and students. However, the local printer, with his new printing press, saw the
chance to try out his new equipment, and printed up copies of the 95 Theses for anyone to have.
Before long, the Pope was one of those who had a copy.

The second event came of Luther's preparation for an upcoming class on Paul's Letter to the
Romans. Luther had aquired Erasmus's Greek New Testament, published in 1516. Prior to its
publication, there really was no New Testament available in its original language. Only the Latin
translation known as the Vulgate were available. But with Erasmus's New Testament, a new
possibility existed to read the text in the language behind the translation. Luther, his friend and
colleague Philip Melanchthon, and others taught themselves Greek and began to explore the
original. Luther says that he was in the privy, reading Paul's letter, when he came across that line
"The just shall live by faith." In that moment, he realized that the Latin translation had hidden the
phrase's meaning. Instead of seeing something like "the one who lives faithfully will live," Luther
read, "those who have been declared righteous will live by faith." With that discovery, Luther
began to turn the Catholic system upside down. [3]

It is difficult to reconstruct a coherent view of Luther’s positions as they are highly unsystematic in
their nature and recordings. He often seems to be against himself in one text after another. But
there are certainly some positions that remain sacred for Luther such as the reality of existence of
"sin" and instead of an evasion, an understanding of “sin" as a condition for humanity not a moral
failure. We are, Luther said, "in bondage to Sin, Death and the Devil." The three are nearly
interchangeable terms. Our problem is that we have been snatched from God by the power of
Death -- we are born mortal, destined to die, and this is the meaning of "sin". God, acting in Jesus
Christ, engaged in a cosmic battle with the power of Death, the Devil, and in the time between
Jesus's death and resurrection, Death was destroyed. Those who are baptized into Jesus Christ
are indeed given full freedom to choose, but the choice is not between life and death - that choice
has been made for the Christian already, in the act of baptism carried out by the Church. Luther
called God "the Hound of Heaven" -- and insisted that the one baptized into Christ could not be
lost to Death again.

Thus, the Pope had an empty power. For his argument, Luther was excommunicated by the Pope
in 1520. The prince of Saxony saw this as an opportunity to make a political break from the
disintegrating Holy Roman Empire, and took with him the churches of Germany. He set Luther to
the task of creating a new Church, something Luther himself had never wanted to do. The wheels
of the Reformation had begun to roll. [4]

It is a difficult task to define a “the Lutheran view of Church and State.” Not only are there various
distortions of Luther’s views on Church and State, but Luther himself held different views at
different periods in his life after separating from Rome, and even within one period logical
reconciliation of all his views is not always easy.

In his book Christ and Culture Richard Niebuhr labeled the Lutheran view as “Christ and Culture in
Paradox.” Modern Lutherans have largely endorsed this label. They accept the existence of
irresolvable tensions between Church and State in their theology

Luther objected both to the church’s greed and the basis of the notion of indulgences. That the
Catholic Church could had the power to pardon anybody’s sins was a ridiculous idea according to
Luther. Salvation, in his view, could only be attained through the mercy of God. “No one needed
to seek or buy salvation through the church.”

By nailing his theses to the church door, Luther was not acting as a heretic. He was simply inviting
other scholars to respond to his ideas in a debate, an ordinary method of learning at universities
of his days. At first, no one accepted Luther’s invitation. Over the next few years, however, his
Ninety-Five Theses sparked a religious movement to reform the Catholic Church. Because the
reformers were protesting against what they felt to be the abuses of the Catholic Church, they
came to be known as Protestants. And because they wanted to reform the Catholic Church, that
is, improve it by making changes, their movement is known as the Reformers.

Ninety-Five Theses of Luther soon gained great prominence in Europe with translations being
made from Latin to German. Encouraged by his success, Luther wrote hundreds of essays
between 1517 and 1546, in which he stresses justification by faith and criticized church abuses.
He showed the practices as proof of how greedy and corrupt the Catholic Church had become.
Luther challenged the church to define itself – if it could. He read over one of his thesis: “Why
does not the Pope, whose riches are at this day more ample than those of the wealthiest of the
wealthy, build one basilica of St. Peter’s with his own money, rather than with that of poor
believers?” Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses were really an invitation to scholars to debate certain
church issues. He had no idea that his challenge to the church would light a fire of protest and
change that would sweep across Europe, and cause the reaction of Pope Leo X to
excommunicate him from the Catholic Church. [5]

There are multiple reasons for why Luther’s ideas against the Church othrodoxy succeeded more
than anybody else’s before him. The most important factor was the existence of widespread
corruption within the Church itself, people recognised the general larger need for reform. And the
second factor owed to the personal charisma of Luther and the strength of his convictions. His
words were immensely appealing to the people. The printing press, developed in Europe about
1450, also contributed to Luther’s success. Printed pamphlets containing unbound essays on
current topics could spread new ideas quickly to many people. By 1523 about a million copies of
Luther’s pamphlets were in circulation.

While the peasants were initially resentful against Luther for not supporting their struggle, which
eventually failed, Luther’s ideas became popular with the German princes. Luther was against the
ownership of property by the Church, and rather insisted that the State should appoint clergymen,
and not the other way around. Thus, Luther favored a more powerful role for rulers and a weaker
church authority. Many German princes who wanted freedom from the Pope’s authority favored
Protestantism. Others remained Catholic because they depended on the support of the Pope. The
question was settled by the Peace of Augsburg, when German princes were allowed to decide
which religion will be followed in their respective state.

In a broad assessment there are three major controversial ideas of Luther that are worth looking
at. The first was justification by faith. The second was the idea that the Bible was the only
authority for Christians, rather than the law of the Catholic Church or Papal bulls. The third was a
belief in a priesthood of all Christians denying the special powers that priests had in the Catholic
Church.

But by far, in the realm of statecraft, Luther’s most important ideas is his insistence on reason’s
supremacy over law, even God’s law, and declaring Church and State to be completely
autonomous from each other.

One of Luther’s earliest writings on Church and State was to the Christian Nobility of the German
Nation, written in 1520. In this pamphlet Luther tried to persuade rulers to overturn the tyranny of
the Catholic Church. The acts he enjoined the rulers to perform included divesting the Catholic
Church of its temporal power, ensuring a married parish clergy, summoning a Council of the
Church, reforming the curricula of the universities where the clergy where trained, and reducing
the size of the religious orders.

In his text, On Secular Authority in 1523, he goes as far to claim not only the autonomy of the
state from Church, but also from Biblical law and God itself. This was a rather radical idea by even
modern measurements. This was partly owed to the counterband asserted by some princes on
the pretext of God and his honour. On Secular Authority is Luther’s most complete exposition of
the issue of Church and State. [6]

However, Luther, as classically known, switched his position once again after the conflicts with
Anabaptists, Jews and Catholics. He now began to advocate a full and literal enforcement of the

against false religion. The only consistency in Luther’s views over the span of his career is that he
chose whichever political philosophy at that time would best advance his goal of the Reformation
of the Church. If the State was opposing the Reformation, then the State should keep out of
religion, even if it were false religion. If the State could repel enemies of the Reformation, then it
should use its power against those false religions.

Luther differed starkly from the Calvinists who declared that “the Law is King,” with absolute
authority over the ruler, by placing greater weightage on reason as “the head of all things. Reason
can justify the ruler in setting aside the law, even God’s law in the Bible. Luther says, “reason
remains the ruler at all times, the supreme law and master of all the laws.” Luther appeals to the
wisdom of Solomon to prove that reason rules even over the law of Moses: “And because
Solomon knew it, he despaired of all the laws, even though God had laid them down for him
through Moses, and of all his princes and counsellors , and turned to God himself, asking him for
a wise heart to rule the people.”

Luther compared ruler’s authority to the Romans, who were ordained to rule, without the
necessary charter of God or the Gospel. It would suffice for a ruler to have the capacity for
reason, without being the saints validated by the Catholic Church. He says it is better to have
"competent turk rule than an incompetent Christian.”

Siemon-Netto also quotes Luther as saying, “We have to . . . learn that the spiritual and the
secular governments are as far apart as heaven and earth.” Because the ruler has reason to guide
him in the affairs of State, he does not need grace, God’s written word, or the advice of bishops to
guide him in how to rule: “In short, I know nothing about what laws to recommend to a prince; I
want only to instruct him how to dispose his heart with regard to whatever laws, counsels,
verdicts and cases he has to deal with.”

Luther’s vague philosophy of state justice and the assignment of tremendous unaccountable
authority on the ruler or the state opened it to the criticism of being the bedrock of Nazi
totalitarian regime three hundred years later.

Conclusion

In these of his ideas, Luther comes to resemble Enlightenment philosophers who prized human
capacity to reason as the greatest virtue.It is similar to Aristotle’s characterisation of reason’s
rulers as those “wisdom and equity.” Unlike the Catholics who too might insist on reason but
claimed a more unified state and Church right over governance, Luther was unambiguous about a
separation between the two kingdoms.

Despite Luther’s insistence on many occasions that Church and State not be joined, from the
beginning as a reformer he also insisted that the prince of the territory establish the Lutheran
Church so as to provide it protection and aid. The ruler’s duties included, regardless of religious
issues, to prevent thievery of his subjects’ property. Luther viewed oaths of German Catholic
bishops to a foreign ruler, the Pope, as contrary to the material interests of the German people.

Luther also rejected the blasphemy laws born out of Moses’ codes. He said that as long as
heretics do not cause civil disturbances, they should be left alone: “Authority should not forbid
anyone to teach or believe or say what he wants - the Gospel or lies. It is sufficient that authority
fights the teaching of insurrection and unrest.” The reason for this, he says, is that heresy is a
spiritual matter against which only spiritual weapons are effective: “The thoughts and beliefs of
the souls cannot be known to anyone but God. Therefore it is futile and impossible to oblige
anybody by force to believe this or that.” In this, Luther also qualifies as a modern philosopher
with a rational basis for his ideas of how the states should deal with dissent against zeitgeist.

Luther principally differs not in the importance of God but how he is revealed in a secular state.
For him the God is ‘hidden’ in the exercise of reason by the ruler or the hierarchy of authority he
has over the masses. Natural reason, informed by wisdom and equity, directs the ruler, who in
turn enforces laws that will control the unruly masses. In the Church, God is not hidden behind
natural reason, hierarchal authority and laws in his control over people. [7]

References

1. A Century of Catholic Mission ; http://www.ocms.ac.uk/regnum/downloads/

2. Luther's Reformation ; http://www.mesacc.edu/~thoqh49081/handouts/luther.html

3. The Bible in the Time of the Reformation ; https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/81845

4. Reformation and Religious Warfare in the Sixteenth Century ; https://www.auburn.wednet.edu/

5. MAJOR EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENTS 1450– 1750 ; http://www.lew-port.com/cms/lib/

6. The Christian Philosophy Of Law, Politics And The State ; http://

7. MARTIN LUTHER'S REFORMATION ; https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/martin-luthers-